High-flyers keep eyes on the prize

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It seems US national security concerns trump free trade
agreements, if the experiences of Canberra-based company Mediaware
is any kind of guide.

The maker of video software analysis systems used last week's
Avalon Air Show near Geelong in Victoria to launch a unique product
with military applications.

Mediaware chief executive Christopher Newell says the US defence
sector is resistant to his company's D-VEX (Digital Video
EXploitation) software, which he claims is the world's first
complete end-to-end video analysis system tailored to defence
buyers.

D-VEX is used on the US-made unmanned aerial reconnaissance
vehicle (UAV) Global Hawk, and by US defence contractors Lockheed
Martin and Raytheon.

"The nature of the work we do with the US military, taking video
footage of war zones and terrorists, is secretive by its nature,
and being, in the eyes of the US, a foreign entity, means it's
harder for us to get involved in these programs (defence contracts)
to the extent that we possibly could," Mr Newell says.

D-VEX performs frame-accurate editing and processing of MPEG
video data. It interprets motion, such as a moving boat, pastes the
video into a gigantic "mosaic" still image and calculates the size
of objects captured on camera. Instead of decompressing video
streams for processing, then re-encoding them for transmission,
D-VEX operates on compressed video while the stream is synchronised
to matching data such as latitude, longitude and altitude.

"Very often video captured by UAVs such as the Predator, which
is armed, is used for targeting," Mr Newell says. "So if you're an
analyst, what you're looking at, at that exact moment, is of
super-critical importance."

At home, Mediaware is having more success with the Australian
Customs Service's Coastwatch, the federal surveillance project for
spotting people-smugglers, illegal fishing and migrating whales.
Airborne customs agents view real-time video feeds from cameras
mounted in an aircraft's body.

Mediaware was founded in 1996 by former scientists from the
national science agency, CSIRO, to commercialise video systems
technology that has found its way mostly into military
applications.

More than 95 per cent of its 25 workers' output is sold to the
US, where it maintains a one-person office in Maryland, the heart
of America's security-industrial complex.

Mr Newell says the US difficulties are proof of Mediaware's
technology - big American contractors are so impressed with it they
are willing to endure the difficulties in dealing with an
Australian developer.

Mediaware's impending bigger commitment to the US should see it
wipe away resistance, he says. "We want to focus on working on more
secret projects in the US. That's important for us."

Civilian broadcasters such as CNN also use the company's
technology to speed video editing.

Mediaware's hopes of working on an Australian unmanned plane
project, the JP 129, depend on a partnership with defence
contractor BAE Systems.

Mediaware terminated its licensing deal with the CSIRO once the
spin-off had created its own intellectual property. Mr Newell says
there's no animosity: "They were happy to see a successful
Australian company founded out of research that was done
there."